Most special item you bought as a teenager

Belladonna. Evening in Paris. Very sophicistated. My first was Blue Grass. In the ladies toilets there was a perfume machine. You put in sixpence, pointed your neck or wrists at the nozzle and a squirt of perfume shot out. There were about 6 to choose from. I can only remember Blue Grass and Tweed.

It's a good job I read this before posting, or else we would have something else on our necks. A very different perfume!

Oh yes, that was it ! Got the wrong time of day!
What might we have got with autocorrect? Weed ?

Turquoise suede hot-pants. I felt the bees knees!!

My radio and record player and LP's came as Christmas presents.
I used to give most of my money to mum too, it was called board.
When I was younger and had a Saturday job I would buy the latest must have single, usually The Beatles. Had to buy my own nylons too, on the market. Used to spend the rest in the coffee bar and on bus fares.

My first sewing machine! I bought it through my mother's Traffords catalogue and paid for it weekly. I was 16 and up till then any clothes I wanted to make were done by hand as my mother, no good with a needle and no interest in sewing, had never owned a sewing machine. I was so excited at the thought of being able to run up side seams in a matter of seconds at last!
That machine lasted me until I was about 30, a basic straight stitch machine, but a real workhorse.

I had a Saturday job while at school, working in a department store, but my heart was in hippy fashion - every week I saved for a white smock top - I mean it was stunning! I wore it to a party and the hostess said she loved it so much, but because she babysitted for her Downs syndrome brother, she could never afford one - so I gave her mine and thought nothing more of it. Years later, I'm talking 40 years later, she told me how much that one little act of kindness meant to her.

Mine was a sewing machine so I could make the latest fashions still using it today obviously it was built to last

Have you noticed how many times the colour turquise has been mentioned?
Must have been the 'in' colour at the time.

Buying my first lipstick was special. It was Tricity Pink by Rimmel in a burgundy plastic case, that broke!

Two things:

!. My first pair of tights; I remember the top of my legs were cold wearing stockings in winter.

2. A smart navy and white hound tooth coat - in Mary Quant's heyday.

I had a Saturday job in Littlewoods and remember the first clothes item I ever bought was a black nylon polo neck top. It was 19/11 (just under £1 in new money) and I wore it for years. I also bought a pan stick of make up. It was the fashion to have very pale faces and no lipstick. We didn't wear eye make up so the look must have been very weird! We thought we were so 'with it' though!

grand Forgotten the phrase " with it."

Thank goodness I don't have any photos of me in that era (sigh of relief).

I was a bit of a nerd as a kid, and had little interest in my appearance (nothing's changed there, then). When I was 14, my mum gave me thirty shillings with instructions to go to town and buy a new cardigan. Unfortunately, my feet were pulled into the small bookshop and I ended up buying a one volume Complete Works of Shakespeare, printed on bible paper and in a tiny font. There was hell to pay when I arrived home with my purchase but sans cardigan. Looking back, I have a lot of sympathy for my poor old mum, as money was very tight and I probably desperately needed a new cardigan. I still have the book, though.

I had a Saturday afternoon job in a small grocery store, when I was still at school, this seemed to be allowable then, not sure about today. I saved my wages, for what seemed to be weeks on end, to buy a pair of expensive knee high leather boots which I had coveted for so long.

Ah yes, knee high boots worn with lacy tights and a mini skirt!

a provident cheque bought me a green suede coat ..my first purchase ,then new glasses as the ones I wore were broken on the bridge and held together with fuse wire and blue insulating tape,,cant have been good for my visual accuity or pupil distances,,but my most favourite was my blue and gold tonic mohair dress with keyhole which was made to measure, by this time I had reinvented myself and upped my game a bit..

Woo hoo get you downtoearth

Can I ask what a tonic mohair dress is (youngster here)?

Think the tonic is a typo!

I'm with vegas: books and more books! But the garment that springs to mind (I chose, Mum bought) was my red duffle coat with white fleecy lining. It saw me through university and early career and was resurrected for two pregnancies. And little heels (known as Louis heels) were fashionable in my late teens - a cream pair with sling backs were the bees knees and much admired by my friends.

rosesarered Mine was also a suede coat - dark brown, three-quarter length. My best friend and I had hankered after a suede coat for quite a while - and at the same time as me she got a coat similar to mine. We had such high expectations of those coats - thinking they would make us appear both trendy and sophisticated and our lives would be transformed - they weren't.

Never mind Eloethan like me, I expect you enjoyed sashaying about in it and feeling wonderful!

wilma and roses mohair was a name used by Trevira which was a plain material tonic was when two colours where blended through to give a sheen in two shades in different lights..this material was favoured by skin heads,who had dresses,trousers,jackets,and suits made from it,very desirable for your street cred and essential to saturday night up the palais dancing to Desmond Dekker and Bobby Blue and all things skinhead circa 1970...you would strut your stuff wearing red or black "dolly shoes" mary janes with a low heel and beige woolly tights with a lacy paterrn by day and gunmetal grey with diamond shapes up the sides by night we where the bees whatsits

Very cool! I think I have seen photos of someone wearing the tights and shoes you're talking about. Not heard of the fabric before, but I do remember my Mum's cousin wearing a crombie coat. I think he might have been wearing Doc Martins too - no skinhead though, he had curly hair. I didn't realise until I was an adult that the fashion was from the film Clockwork Orange.

My DDs were desperate for Harrington jackets, which were bomber jackets with plaid linings. They insisted on the 'tonic' black, which was a slightly different shade to the normal black. I never could understand why the difference mattered, but it was very important to them.